[How To] copy Nokia Contacts to iPhone using MS Outlook and iTunes

When I got my new iPhone 4 last week, after playing with it for hours and days, I thought for a while that I need to copy all the contacts from my existing Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Phone which I have been using for the past one and half years and put the iPhone to its intended use, that is, use it as a phone :P.

I thought that I would have to copy all the contacts one by one as mine is a locked phone which I have taken on a contract from O2 (here in UK) which kept me away from doing that till now. But then I found out an easy way to do it which took me not more than 10 minutes to copy all my contacts from Nokia to iPhone.

If you want to transfer all your iPhone data to Android, check out this detailed tutorial.

Copying Contacts from Nokia Phone to MS Outlook

Step 1:

You need to Install Nokia PC suite on your machine, if you do not have it already. Also, You need to have MS outlook or outlook express installed on your computer.

Step 2: [Updated]

Now, click on ‘Contacts’ in the left section, and then select the option “Microsoft Outlook” (radio button) under the section “Sync with contacts application.” Now, click on OK in this window.

Step 3: [Updated]

Now, click on ‘Sync’ button for contacts in the Ovi application home. You will find this in the lower left corner when you click on the Home Tab or Contacts Tab on your Nokia Ovi Suite. If you want to sync all you data, you can click on ‘Sync All’ option which is shown in the Home tab, or you can click on ‘Contacts’ tab and this same button will change to ‘Sync Contact’ clicking on which you will be able to sync only your contacts.

[As I no longer have my Nokia 5800 with me, I have shown below a screen grab from Nokia help section.]

This synchronizes contacts from your Nokia Phone with MS outlook, which means this will transfer all your contacts to MS outlook.

After you get the above confirmation message, close the Nokia PC suite, disconnect Nokia Phone from computer.

Copying Contacts from MS Outlook to iPhone

Once the Steps 1-3 are completed, all your contacts are copied to MS Outlook on your machine. Now, to completely move your contacts from Nokia to iPhone, you simply need to sync them to your iPhone.

Step 4:

Connect the iPhone to your computer and launch Apple iTunes software. Click on your iPhone Device in the left tab on iTunes which will show the summary of your iPhone.

Step 5:

Click on the check box for “Sync Contacts with” and leave the value selected as default i.e. Outlook. Leave the option selected as All Contacts below that. Refer to the screenshot below. (Click to enlarge)

Step 6:

Click on the Apply button.

iTunes will start syncing Microsoft Outlook contacts on to your new iPhone and once it gets completed, you can see all the Nokia Phone contacts on your new iPhone.

And, you are done!!

You can use the same steps above to copy contacts from iPhone to Nokia Phone as well. You need to simply reverse the process. Start with syncing iPhone contacts to Outlook and then sync them from Outlook to Nokia Phone.

Also, this can be used to transfer contacts between any other phone (which gives the option to sync with Outlook) and iPhone.

Hope you find this post easy and informative. How do you transfer contacts between your phone, do share with us if you have a better way of doing it.

If you think the above process is too geeky for you to follow, you can transfer Nokia phone data to iPhone using iNoki iPhone app – another easy way to do it ;)! Read the full tutorial here.

Great, unfortunatly I do not have my Nokia N95 anymore and got an Iphone, is it possible to transfer the contacts from OVI Nokia Suite to MS outlook without having the N95 connected? I tried but I can’t seem to get around it. Help

Itz very Easy.Just use iSync in your mac and sync your device . If your device is not support, just download the plugin from Nokia site. After sync all the contacts,calendars etc will be visible in your contact list.Then sync your mac (iTunes) with your iPhone/iPad/iPod straight away.

I have had a look at you steps and thought it would work for me. However I cannot get my contacts from ovi to outlook it just says sync failed. nokia phone is connected to pc (sim card is inactive as I have changed probiders when bought iphone 4). Is the old nokia sim the issue I wonder? any suggestions? I would appreciate it.

Hi, I found the instructions very good and followed them (I believe) to the letter. However the iphone received no updated contacts. The sync went ok, but quickly for the info to be transferred. I’m stumped! Any ideas please?

Hi David… If the sync went OK, then it should have ideally updated all the contacts to your iPhone.. Can you retry this process from the start? Make sure in the Info tab, the “Sync Contacts with Outlook” option is enabled… Please let me know if you still face any issues…

I have re-tried the operation a few times again with the same result – no data on the iphone. Outlook has received updated info from the Nokia suite app, but it’s not getting to the phone. As with many comments i’ve seen when trying this – it’s driving many of us mad!

I am sorry that you are still facing this issue. I have heard from some of our other readers also about facing some problems while syncing.. I will try on my phone and contact you if there is any change in the process… or I will mail you…

I have tried following your steps but I need some help. When I get to step 3, it says sync failed instead of what your step displays. This may be of interest, because the iPhone 4 and my Nokia 6681 use different sim cards, the nokia sim card now reports sim card registration fail as I have a new sim card on my iPhone. Can I please have some help?

hello amandeep, i have copied all contacts in OVI (in my laptop) from my nokia. however, i cannot connect my nokia now because it is damaged. how can i transfer contacts in Nokia OVI (in my laptop) to Iphone 4g ? Any suggestions ?

Thanks a lot for your comment, Raja. I am really glad that this write-up was of help to you. Such kind and encouraging words help me to post more useful content here, at Technolism. Thanks again for your visit

Thanks Amandeep, another very happy user here. Your instructions were very easy to read, very easy to find, and screenshots essentially helpful. One tip in case others are silly like me and couldn’t get it to work at first: Make sure your Nokia phone contacts are actually on your phone memory first, and not just on your SIM card, otherwise you’ll have nothing to sync.
It’s people like you who make our days easier.

It was helpfull indeed, but have an small issue, few contacts are stored on my nokia as mobile number with more than 2 or 3 different numbers which i cound’nt transfer to nokia pc suite can anybody suggest? if it is stored as mobile /phone /office then those were transfered…pls advise

very helpful.
Needs to add a bit more to the process.
When Connected your Nokia to OVI and sync. leave it connected when sync.ing to MS outlook.
Took me a while to figure this out.
All in all great help guys.
Thanks
Anup

I desperately need to transfer calendar from n97 to iphone4. it’s driving me crazy. I’ve tried many things all to no avail. ;(
can u advise can I do a similar thing like above? all advise please before o have to do it manually argh ;{

You can use the same process mentioned above, instead of the option “Sync Contacts with Outlook,” just select the option “Sync Calendars with Outlook” and the rest of the process is same. Please let me know in case of any issues.

I had the problem that I purchased an i Phone 4 yesterday but the old simcard in my Nokia N95 was not working correctly. The article from Amandeep on how to transfer contacts from the N95 to the i Phone 4 was excellent and saved me having to go to the o2 shop to seek advice. I was considering returning the phone and staying with the N95!

transferred contacts through outlook.. PROBLEM:
in each contact, one entry of each category is imported by outlook.. E.G :
Contact A has 1 mobile 1 telephone 1 fax 2 pagers… it’ll drop i pager and transfer rest…!!
any solutions to this?? ???

There is a more straightforward way to do that, using a software called MOBILedit.

MOBILedit! is capable of migrating data between various phones. It allows you to connect phones to PC and manage its content.

How to copy data from one phone to another:
1) Download and install MOBILedit! (http://www.mobiledit.com/downloads.htm) and also the mobile phones cable drivers pack, if necessary (also there).
2) Plug both phones to your computer and let the drivers to be installed automatically (Apart from data cable, you can use also BlueTooth or infraport).
3) Open MOBILedit! and run Connection Wizard. Both phones will be found and connected immediatelly, if everything goes well.
4) Go to Phone Copier plugin and set it up so the source phone is displayed on the left side and the destination phone on the right.
5) Choose contacts and other content to be copied.
6) Hit the big Copy button and voila!

I have stuffed around downloading from the internet…purchasing apps for my iphone but THIS this information really worked and YES it was done in two minutes after fluffing around getting frustrated for THREE hours!!!!

I am so happy…this was sooo easy…AND IT WORKED!

I am so grateful! Would you like a free copy of my book? am happy to email you the pdf or send you the paperback.

I have new Nokia N9 purchased from Oman and came to India. I took new vodaphone no. in India. want to have email connection with indiatimes.com. When I connect to my email in nokia n9, it says no message.but on lap top it has new messages. I can not understand why?

After searching the net for 6 hours and trying all the different methods and still failed, I finally tried your method again. This time I went really slowly and realized that my Nokia Ovi Suite didn’t give an ‘Outlook’ option. Instead it uses ‘Windows Contacts’ which I then selected in the iTune sync option and VOILA … it worked so easily. Thanks for your easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions.

I’ve found an app in the App Store which has copied 300+ contacts from my Nokia E72 to my new iPhone 4S pretty easily. I had to download a Java applet to the E72 which has uploaded the contacts to the “cloud” (no registration or stuff like that; I hate those) and has given me an access code. After that I had to enter the code in the iPhone app and then my contacts appeared on the iPhone in seconds. It isn’t perfect though, because it copies only two phone numbers per contact, so I’ve lost some details during the transfer, but still it has saved me quite some headache. The app is called “ConCopy”.

I am having great difficulty at Step 3 where you instruct to “‘Sync’ button for contacts in the Ovi application home. ” You don’t show a window for this step. And logically for me I need to press “OK” at the bottom of the screen displayed in step 2 before I press any “Sync” button. In any case where is this “Sync” button exactly. Incidentally when I press “OK” nothing happens. It just closes the window.
Help! Please?
Maria

I was transferring contacts from an old Nokia n95 onto my iPhone 3GS which I did by saving the contacts onto a sim card off he phone and then switching the sim into the 3GS where I imported the contacts off the sim. Then removed the sim and repeated the process until all contacts were copied over. Upon doing the last lot I appear to have lost all of the contacts. I am concerned that I will not be able to recover these. I also seem to have messed up the contact lists on my other phone. Is there anywhere I can go to get assistance with this issue?

Thank you for this information. I recently transferred my contacts from E71 to iphone 3Gs and I thought I’ll share that info too. I copied all the contacts to the SIM card on the E71. Later, I transferred the SIM to the iphone and there is an option under settings on the iphone to import SIM contacts. I tried and it imported all the contacts. It takes a few minutes though (took 3 minutes approx.). Hope this helps others.

The minute I saw this site I knew it just HAD to have been made with…”what else?”…but Thesis! And PLEASE don’t tell me you started thinking of some famous actor whose first name is George or coffee beans for that matter at this point, as I would immediately imagine you look at too many TV commercials.

This being said, Thesis is something we appear to have in common.

Other than that, I wanted to convey a deep sense of gratitude for the information contained in the excellent Nokia to iPhone tutorial way further back up from this comment list, not only well done, but efficient as well, allowing me to seamlessly move two separate lists to two different iPhone units.

I am not sure where you are getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend a while finding out much more or figuring out more. Thanks for great information I used to be on the lookout for this information for my mission.

Thanks alot amandeep your article helped me alot i was thinking how to transfer contacts to my new iphone thanks alot this idea dint clicked thought i have done the same thing while transferring contacts from nokia to blackberry

Wow, thank you very much Amandeep. You have no idea how this helped me, my boss just gave me his Nokia phone and the new iPhone and said he wants his contacts synched – i went to google as ussual and fortunately opened your link. It worked like magic man, you are the best.! Keep it up…you saved me. It just took me 30 mins or so to do all this, and my boss was happy, and he promised an increment in salary..so i will give you a little bit from that

I want to have all my stuff of N79 into iphone 4s like contacts, messages, calender entries, photos, songs, videos and everything. Any tip to make it?
However I want to connect my iphone via Bluetooth to other mobile brands, is it possible to make it connected?

My brother and me have purchased iphones together, but I can’t understand he has made his apple id without providing any credit card details, everything is working fine to him, he can download everything available for free in app store, whereas I am not able to create apple id without providing card details, all the time it’s notifies me that I must review my itunes account first in order to have full access. I don’t understand how did my brother make an account without providing such details.

Although, both ours iphone have same OS version (5.1.1(9B206)).
Please suggest me something for it.

Thank you very much Amandeep your article was very helpful I was wondering how to transfer contacts to my new iPhone from Nokia. I tried in several ways but none of them worked. I tried according to your article, and was able to transfer contacts in no time. Thanks a lot once again for the great information.

All steps were followed but have an small issue, few contacts are stored on my nokia as mobile number with more than 2 or 3 different numbers which i cound’nt transfer to nokia pc suite, any suggestion?

hi mr amandeep singh
this was a very useful and safe method for trasfering the contacts from a nokia phone to iphone
thanks for it and best of luck for further achievments.
one thing else is remaining that whether some one can copy the texts from nokia phone to iphone. if possible then please give me instructions.
take care bye

To transfer other data like messages, calendar, there are apps like iNoki in the App store market (http://www.technolism.com/inoki-nokia-iphone-app.html) But, this one is a paid app, I will look for some free solution and come up with an article on technolism. Stay tuned till then

Brother, it is really good help…… I was roaming across shop to shop with my nokia phone and iphone with the data cables in my hand but no one was knowing about and ultimate I found you……….. Thanks from the bottom of my heart ……….

Hi, I have trying to transfer contacts from Nokia C-5 using your ideas…but no success. I transferred all my contacts to Windows contacts (by copying them in a memory card and then to PC) and then in i tunes clicked the option of Windows contacts..but nothing.
I have been able to copy Outlook contacts but then they are only e-mail ids and the phone numbers are still troubling me!!:-(

I just bought an iphone and was told it would be a nightmare to transfer my contacts from nokia to iphone. Contacted mr. google, got referred to you and fantastic help from your article. Managed to transfer over 1000 contacts in minutes. I cant tell how reassured I feel now, all thanks to your help. Keep up the fantastic good work. You have me now, who will promote your website to others.
Regards
Mazhar

Hi Aman,
it just solved my problem in a min…. thanks bro… i have one more issue. i have an i phone 5 and i am not able to create an apple id without giving out my credit card details… is there a way to create without divulging the details.. plz let me knw what best can be done…..

Regarding your query, yes there is a way you can create and Apple ID without giving your credit card details. Please check this linkhttp://support.apple.com/kb/HT2534 and it should help you.. Otherwise, you can safely give your CC details, it is quite safe with Apple.

Also, as you have bought a new iPhone, you might want to check out my latest blog about iPhone Tips, Apps and iOS news at http://itechapple.com/
Do check it out.. Cheers!

hello,
dear friend,i am following it,till the sync all step,i connected the fone,clicked to sync contact vai outlook,but when i press sync contact in the home menu of nokia suite,my pc gives error,”closing program its not working properly”,stranger fact is i tried to sync the messages and other stuff except contacts ,so it shows they have been synced sucessfully,but i can t find it outlook messages?? please help!!!

I have an issue with the N900, lets say I have 10 phone numbers saved under one of my contacts, when syncing with outlook it seems that the generated vcard only syncs about 2 or 3 phone numbers on random.

Is there a way you configure outlook to add custom fields so it can sync all the phone numbers ?